Available at: AMAZON | THE BATTLESHOP | DRIVETHRURPG |BARNES & NOBLE
Brozek creates well-developed and complex characters whose failures and successes, strengths and weaknesses pull you in, making you care about them and their fate. I would definitely recommend this book for older YA Lit, New Adult, and Adult readers.”
– Janine K. Spendlove, War of the Seasons trilogy, USMC pilot
“Jennifer Brozek’s superb storytelling makes me want to play Battletech again.”
– M. Todd Gallowglas, Tears of Rage and Halloween Jack series
Here are some great Nellus Academy Incident blurbs! I’m really excited about this first one because the author is also active duty USMC. When I write military fiction, I want military members to enjoy it and not groan at the mistakes. The Nellus Academy Incident release date is 27 Jan 2014. Next Monday!
“This is the first Battletech novel I’ve ever read, and given that I knew nothing about the “Battletech universe” prior to this as well, I had no idea what to expect going into it.
What did I find? A well written story where I immediately identified with each of main protagonists: eight, hand selected, teenage military cadets. This is a story where it would be so easy to write a “Mary Sue” or “Gary Stu” type character, but Brozek doesn’t do that. She not only manages to carefully balance and develop each character, but she does it naturally and through the flow of the narrative, so the story never feels bogged down with extraneous details – instead, it pulls the reader along, making it very difficult to put down.
As an active duty member of the military myself (USMC), I am grateful for the fact that she didn’t shy away from broaching difficult/realistic subjects such as courage and fear in the face of battle, loss and sacrifice, and of course the effects of the trauma that the cadets go through. Additionally, like real combat, just because you’re a “well developed character,” that doesn’t protect you from dying – meaning, there are no “red-shirts” here. No one is safe in this story, no one. And I appreciated the stark reality of that brutality. It hurt my heart to read it, and that’s how war should feel: painful.
Brozek creates well-developed and complex characters whose failures and successes, strengths and weaknesses pull you in, making you care about them and their fate. I would definitely recommend this book for older YA Lit, New Adult, and Adult readers.”
– Janine K. Spendlove, War of the Seasons trilogy, USMC pilot
“Jennifer is a pro. Her dedication to the Battletech series is worth your time.”
– Ivan Van Norman, Outbreak: Undead and King of the Nerds
“A fun read. Jennifer Brozek’s Battletech novel, The Nellus Academy Incident, takes us on a wild journey as we follow Cadet Allegra Greene from the classroom to the battlefield. Battletech fans, this one’s a winner.”
– Bobby Nash, Evil Ways and Earthstrike Agenda
“In a solid reworking of the classic rites of passage story, Jennifer Brozek uses solid characterization and great action scenes to make The Nellus Academy Incident a real winner.”
– Michael A. Black, author of Chimes at Midnight and Sleeping Dragons in the Mack Bolan Executioner series
“Brozek’s made the world of Battletech accessible to those new to the game with The Nellus Academy Incident, all while putting new names and faces into a world beloved by longtime Battletech fans. If you’re looking for action-packed, smartly paced sci-fi, then get your hands on a copy of this book.”
– Lillian Cohen-Moore, Convention Book: Void Engineers
A couple years back, Jason Schmetzer, the fiction editor for battlecorps.com, asked me if I wrote stories about “big stompy ’Mechs.” My answer was an unhesitating “No.” Jason, not to be denied, asked me if I could crash a big stompy ’Mech and then write him a story. I thought about it and said that I thought I could… if I could think of the right story.
It took two years and some back and forth between me and Jason to hammer out the idea for The Nellus Academy Incident – a YA Battletech webserial about 8 cadets and a General in a PR event gone horribly, horribly wrong. I figured it would be about 25 episodes of about 2000 words each and was designed to go up on a weekly basis. That’s not exactly what happened but, in the end, the webserial was 25 episodes and almost 60,000 words.
I was surprised and delighted beyond words when Jason told me that The Nellus Academy Incident was going to be packaged up as a novel for general sale. This wasn’t my intent when I wrote the serial but, wow, it looked like I had written a YA novel without planning on it.
Yesterday, I got the cover. The book will come out towards the end of January. Isn’t it pretty?
As a side note, I do know what I’d write for a sequel if Jason asked for another serial for battlecorps.com.
Jennifer Brozek is a multi-talented, award-winning author, editor, and media tie-in writer. She is the author of Never Let Me Sleep and The Last Days of Salton Academy, both of which were nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. Her YA tie-in novels, BattleTech: The Nellus Academy Incident and Shadowrun: Auditions, have both won Scribe Awards. Her editing work has earned her nominations for the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the Hugo Award. She won the Australian Shadows Award for the Grants Pass anthology, co-edited with Amanda Pillar. Jennifer’s short form work has appeared in Apex Publications, Uncanny Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, and in anthologies set in the worlds of Valdemar, Shadowrun, V-Wars, Masters of Orion, Well World, and Predator.
Jennifer has been a full-time freelance author and editor for over seventeen years, and she has never been happier. She keeps a tight schedule on her writing and editing projects and somehow manages to find time to teach writing classes and volunteer for several professional writing organizations such as SFWA, HWA, and IAMTW. She shares her husband, Jeff, with several cats and often uses him as a sounding board for her story ideas. Visit Jennifer’s worlds at jenniferbrozek.com or her social media accounts on LinkTree.